This is rightly termed A Celebration
of the work of Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson and not a Memorial
or something equally sombre. He died in 2004 and these premiere
recordings span his compositional life and show a composer of
gifts.

He studied with
Vittorio Giannini and Earl Kim but carried on a parallel career
in jazz, even becoming pianist in one of Max Roach’s quartets.
Clearly for Perkinson black music was an issue that recurred
throughout his career, though his 1978 comments on the matter
as quoted here “I cannot define black music ... There are kinds
of black music, just as there are kind of other musics ...”
strike me as being pragmatic and practical and pretty much all
that needs to be said on the matter, at least as far as his
own music is concerned.

The earliest work
here is the neo-classical Sinfonietta No.1 dating from the mid-1950s.
Maybe there are echoes of Barber’s Adagio in the slow movement,
as alleged in the notes, but the finale is more reminiscent
of Copland in fresh air mode. There’s a lissom, well-digested
though rather restless dynamism at work here. Grass,
a Poem for piano, strings and percussion followed in 1956 and
adhered to the same basic models, albeit that the piano part
offers greater opportunities for lyricism amidst some of the
dissonances.

The Quartet No.1
(1956), which Perkinson takes care to note is based on the Negro
Spiritual Calvary, has more neo-classical freedom harnessed
to a bluesier ethos, but one that also embraces some Vaughan
Williams in the central movement. Hs solo work Blue/s Forms
for solo violin is a tricksy title but has an arresting
Bachian opening. But the improvisatory effect in the second
movement is the really interesting part, its blues melancholy
repeated almost too much.

Lamentations
(1973) is written for solo cello and it marked a period of writing
for solo stringed instruments. It has dynamism and a consolidation
of Perkinson’s own accommodation of blues and spiritual influences
with neo-classical procedures. Louisiana Blues Strut
is down home – no messing about – and the Movement forstring trio is the last thing he wrote, in the year of
his death. It has an affecting simplicity, a stripping away
of the external and extraneous.

There were different
recording locations involved, necessarily, and the sound quality
does vary. Performances are generally excellent; idiomatic and
understanding and notes are intelligent and sensible. Perkinson’s
voice was a valuable one and we could do with more of his music
on disc.

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